“I wanted to help raise awareness and do something for my grandpa,” he said.
He saw his grandfather having to shave his head due to the chemotherapy treatment and decided he should do the same.
Jeff recalls the shock and pride he felt for his eldest grandson the moment he told him his plans.
“He’d always been a good boy, so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised to think that he might want to do something good,” Jeff said.
“We’re beyond proud of him,” Jeff’s wife, Ruth Trevaskis, said.
“When we had to tell the kids the truth, the kids just laid on him and cried and cried.
“And the next day, Ben said to me, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be a neuroscientist’, and I said, ‘Oh, not a surgeon?’ and he goes ‘No, I don’t want to cut it out, I want to cure it’.”
Ben’s mother, Rachel Sumpter, helped him to decide on a fundraising goal and a foundation to donate it to.
“Originally, Ben said he wanted to raise $100,” Rachel said.
Slowly, the amount rose until they settled on their goal of $20,000 for the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute — and they’re already over a quarter of the way there.
“I really did not expect this much money to be raised so far,” Ben said.
“I think my grandpa is pretty happy.”
Jeff has lived in Tatura almost all his life and has been teaching Year 11 and 12 maths for the past 45 years. Up until this year, he was teaching at Greater Shepparton Secondary College.
Ben plans to shave his head in November.
To donate to Ben and Jeff’s cause, you can head to tinyurl.com/42vcytdf
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